If You're Thinking of Living In/Flemington, N.J.; Small-Town Feel, With Outlets

A HOLE-IN-THE-DOUGHNUT municipality surrounded by Raritan Township, the one-square-mile borough of Flemington is known for its outlet stores, pottery and cut glass. As the seat of Hunterdon County in the southern part of the state, the borough also has a rich history as the farming center that, at the turn of the century, was served by the Central, Pennsylvania and Lehigh Valley Railroads. In its heyday, 54 freight trains a day stopped in Flemington to supply produce and industrial goods to New York City and Philadelphia.

About 80 percent of the single-family houses were built before World War II. According to a local history, Flemington has one of the finest collections of Greek Revival houses in the nation, with 60 percent of the borough's structures -- including most of the houses -- in a district that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The oldest house in the borough is the white clapboard Fleming Castle, built in 1756 by one of the earliest European settlers, Samuel Fleming, who was of Irish descent.

Originally a tavern, the structure is now a private residence on Bonnell Street near the center of town.

Everywhere, houses are being upgraded or expanded. Mayor Austin H. Kutscher Jr. notes that the borough has obtained a $200,000 grant from the State Department of Community Affairs, which allows it to offer residents loans of up to $10,000 each to upgrade historic properties.

Mayor Kutscher also says his administration is stressing economic development and downtown revitalization by streamlining the process under which commercial landlords are allowed to change the permitted uses of their buildings. Indeed, in the downtown business district, there are few empty stores.

Craig G. Proctor, a broker with Coldwell Banker Realty on Main Street, says that houses that are priced right in Flemington often sell within two weeks. He characterizes his customers as mostly executives, white-collar workers and business people.

''They want to live in Hunterdon County for the educational system, the rural nature and the job market,'' he said. ''We are close to New York, Philadelphia and large employment areas of New Jersey. But they also like the small-town friendliness, the older homes and the convenience of a walkable main street.''

At the end of December, 15 houses were on the market in the Multiple Listing Service. Their prices ranged from $97,000 for a small two-bedroom ranch that needs work to $499,000 for a six-bedroom, six-bath 19th-century Queen Anne-style house on Main Street that is now a bed-and-breakfast. The median price of homes that were sold rose 17 percent last year, Mr. Proctor said.

There are 86 condominium town houses in two developments: the 56-unit Coppermine Village off Mine Street and the newer 30-unit Victorian Square off Walter Foran Boulevard. Homes in Coppermine bring $140,000 for smaller two-bedroom units to $165,000 for larger three-bedroom units; in Victorian Square, prices are about 10 percent higher.

FLEMINGTON has six large apartment complexes, with 668 units. The largest are the 164-unit Prospect Hills on Capner Street and the 182-unit Hunter Hills garden apartment complex off Garden Lane, both on the west side of town. Rentals throughout the borough range from $750 for small one-bedroom units to $1,100 for larger two-bedroom units.

Among the newer residents are Dan and Judi Morgan, who bought a four-bedroom Victorian on Broad Street a year and a half ago. Mr. Morgan works from home as a computer systems analyst, and Mrs. Morgan teaches in the local school system.

''We moved from a home on a large lot in Raritan Township, where you don't know your neighbors and have to drive everywhere,'' Mr. Morgan said. ''Now, we're in town, where you can walk to everything. It's really pleasurable to know your neighbors and the store owners. It's a sense of community.''

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Commercially, Flemington is split between its historic Main and Broad Streets and two outlet malls off Church Street: the modern brick 60-store Liberty Village, and Turntable Junction, an eclectic collection of a dozen old buildings transplanted into Flemington in 1965 to become an outlet shopping area.

Among the most unusual shops in the historic section is Stangl/Pfaltzgraff Pottery, started on Mine Street in the early 19th century. Although they no longer operate, three conical brick kilns form the core of the structure -- a reminder of the way pottery was produced at the turn of the century, when the company was making 1,500 pieces of stoneware at the site daily. Another well-known local business is Flemington Cut Glass, a lead-crystal manufacturer that opened in 1902 and still has a shop off Main Street.

The lone relic of Flemington's railroading past is the Black River and Western Railroad, a tourist train that starts just outside Liberty Village and is pulled by a 1937 steam-powered locomotive to nearby Lambertville. It operates from March 31 through Dec. 9; round trips cost $8 for adults and $4 for children ages 3 to 12.

The most famous structure in town is the former Hunterdon County Courthouse, a colonnaded white structure built on Main Street in 1828. In 1935, it was the venue for what was called ''the trial of the century,'' in which a handyman, Bruno Hauptmann, was convicted of kidnapping and killing Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of the famous aviator. Across the street is the Union Hotel -- a four-story 1877 brick structure with two-story gingerbread porches -- where the Lindbergh jurors were sequestered during the trial.

Now a restaurant and office space, the building is still used for annual re-enactments of the Lindbergh trial, which take place in October. Also on Main Street are a number of antiques shops, a tobacconist with a cigar-store Indian out front and Flemington Furs, which says it is the world's largest fur outlet. The borough has no supermarkets; residents do their food shopping in Raritan Township.

One of Flemington's attractions for the Morgans was its excellent school system. Mr. Morgan's 14-year-old daughter, Carey, is now in the eighth grade at the 1,160-student Reading-Fleming Middle School, which houses grades six through eight. Together with four elementary schools, the middle school makes up the 3,500-student Flemington-Raritan Regional School District, which it shares with the surrounding Raritan Township.

AFTER middle school, the students go on to Hunterdon Central High School, which also includes students from Raritan, Readington, East Amwell and Delaware Townships.

The superintendent of schools of the Flemington-Raritan Regional District, Dr. Jack Farr, notes that the elementary and middle school system has both a wide-ranging special education program starting in kindergarten and a gifted-and-talented program starting in the third grade.

Spanish language instruction starts in the first grade, and computers are introduced in kindergarten. Each classroom has at least one terminal, and each school has a computer laboratory.

The 2,740-student Hunterdon Central High School is on a 72-acre campus on Route 31 in Flemington. It includes four classroom buildings, a music building, a media center and a communications building that houses a student-run FM-radio station and a cable television station, which broadcasts local events. Advanced placement courses are offered in English, psychology, economics, calculus, biology, chemistry, physics, German and Spanish.

On last year's SAT's, Hunterdon Central's students scored a combined verbal and mathematics average of 1,073, which is 64 points higher than the state average. Of last year's 505 graduating seniors, 87 percent went on to two- or four-year colleges.

The largest recreational facility in town is the five-acre Tuccamirgan Park, off Bonnell Street. It has playground equipment, picnic tables under a pavilion, a running path and a basketball court.